Disasters in SimCity (2013)

[Vampirovibrio 43]

Hi! I saw a post on the official forum on Simcity. There is a link to an article where they interviewed an associate producer of Simcity (http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/12/sim-city-impressions-life-through-a-glassbox-lens/). The disturbing news from the article is that other players can start disasters in your city. The relevant part of the article is below:

"The cooperative angle is appealing but what’s to stop a guy coming into my public region and unleashing a meteor strike on my city?

Well you can drop disasters on other cities. You can do negative things. You saw our big casino city, so say I didn’t have a police force there. It would generate a lot of crime, and that crime can reach out into neighbouring cities. Residents travel back and forth a lot, so I could make a police force that can go everywhere as well. We’re not going to tell players that they can’t do anything.

So as I understand it, if someone in my region were to drop meteors on my city, then all of a sudden that becomes his problem as well as he’s my neighbour?

Yeah."

I have posted a reply in the official forum and asking the developer to confirm that indeed other players can start disasters in your own city. What in the world are the developers thinking if this is indeed true! I can understand spill over effect of crime and pollution but really, other players starting disasters in your own city?!

[Architechnid 186]

I don't see me wanting to ever let anyone other than people I already know in person into my regions. It would seem Maxis doesn't believe that griefers would take advantage of the system they are putting in place. The statement made by the associate producer does not engender trust, as many other statements seem to do.

  Edited November 19, 2012 by Architechnid  
Removed off-topic content.

[Urban Cartographer 601]

Hi! I saw a post on the official forum on Simcity. There is a link to an article where they interviewed an associate producer of Simcity (http://www.vg247.com...-glassbox-lens/). The disturbing news from the article is that other players can start disasters in your city. The relevant part of the article is below:

"The cooperative angle is appealing but what’s to stop a guy coming into my public region and unleashing a meteor strike on my city?

Well you can drop disasters on other cities. You can do negative things. You saw our big casino city, so say I didn’t have a police force there. It would generate a lot of crime, and that crime can reach out into neighbouring cities.Residents travel back and forth a lot, so I could make a police force that can go everywhere as well. We’re not going to tell players that they can’t do anything.

So as I understand it, if someone in my region were to drop meteors on my city, then all of a sudden that becomes his problem as well as he’s my neighbour?

Yeah."

I have posted a reply in the official forum and asking the developer to confirm that indeed other players can start disasters in your own city. What in the world are the developers thinking if this is indeed true! I can understand spill over effect of crime and pollution but really, other players starting disasters in your own city?!

That is very scary. Trolls have the ability to ruin your city. Even worse, you cannot reload to a previous save. This would be terrible for multiplayer gameplay.

[grugor 60]

george was misquoted. you cant unleash disasters on other peoples cities

[Architechnid 186]

george was misquoted. you cant unleash disasters on other peoples cities

I do hope this is correct...

[Urban Cartographer 601]

george was misquoted. you cant unleash disasters on other peoples cities

I do hope this is correct...

Same. I really hope that it is a misquote. If it were indeed true, then it would be bad.

[Vampirovibrio 43]

Okay, I got confirmation from Maxisguillaume on the official forum that it was a misquote. His reply is in http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/15/9116813.page#25883746

So the official word is that other players cannot unleash disasters on your city.

[Machinimator 40]

I always felt that once you figured out the "right" way to build a city the game was kind of lacking since you just had to follow a formula to keep your city expanding and the sim-citizens happy. The forced disasters, global economy, and limited resources should ensure that actually playing a city will stay interesting for longer now that there are other challenges besides "expand your city"

SimCity is a sandbox god game by default even more so than Civilization. Taking away disaster control from players is just going backwards.

[TotalFire 1]

I want the meteors and volcanos to be a lot more realistic. Maybe there could be a meteor similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. not only does it explode massively it also spits out rock and superheated gasses, creates volcanic activity and causes a world wide apocalypse. And then maybe the world can keep simulating as every city you built rots done until you can start again. The volcanos can also shoot rocks and also the pyroclastic cloud could be ejected wiping out the whole city. but maybe this is wishful thinking...

[Herdervriend 46]

I love disasters. So I want all of them./

For me the most important thing is that I will be able to do things with the emergency vechicles. Saves me money to buy Emergency 2012.

[paeng 2,525]

I don't really care - they can add all the disasters they want... as long as I have the option to turn them off.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

The volcanos can also shoot rocks and also the pyroclastic cloud could be ejected wiping out the whole city. but maybe this is wishful thinking...

THAT would be cool! It would be way better than that tomato ketchup SC4 volcanoes spewed!

[Urban Cartographer 601]

I want disasters to be optional and be unleashed when I want (especially given the cloud saves).

[Chackson 3]

Disasters should be random, but also based upon how you run your city,

E.g If you continually run a very polluted city, for a long period of time "climate change disasters" start to affect your city.

Chackson

[jamstermarcer1 0]

Ive just got confirmation ZOMBIES will be in the new SIMCITY i found a video of beta gameplay prooving it!!

[Zukunftstraume 220]

I couldn't give less of a flapjack if Godzilla is in there at all... I want all the realistic disasters and the sci-fi ones added (because those are actually in theory possible!)... Having UFO's is pretty standard among Maxis right now anyways, along with a meteorite storm/single projectile

Ive just got confirmation ZOMBIES will be in the new SIMCITY i found a video of beta gameplay prooving it!!

Haha, that's not too shabby at all!

[macvirt 361]

It would just be nice if you could manually save the game before unleashing a disaster, watching it all burn, and then resetting the clock to before you had a bit of a "let's play god" hiccup.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

I'm sure they've said you can turn off auto-disasters in your city if you really want to, so you'll be able to save your game before the chaos begins.

I'll probably have the disaster tool set on (should it exist), it makes the game a little bit more interesting for me. Well, as long as I'm not getting hit by a major disaster once every 3 years (which of course, is very realistic for a city to experience a ridiculous earthquake, mass meteorite fragment impacts, a siege of tornados, and a UFO-mothership Independence Day Style all within 12 years).

[Hoipus 292]

Turning off auto disasters =/= being able to save, destroy your city then reload to a not destroyed city. They're really pushing the idea of persistent cities, and it's been confirmed that the game doesn't allow you to do that.

[Barboss 0]

I don't think hurricanes and tsunamis are going to work that well if they were used in the game as they effect a much larger area than the proposed 2km x 2km. They would need to be region wide to be more realistic. The same for tornadoes and earthquakes. So maybe a region wide option of how closely each tile effects their neighbors.

Meteors, Godzilla etc should never just happen.

I do like how it looks as if fire engines are automatically dispatched now.

I would also like that if a building is hit/flooded that it doesn't just automatically collapse. Maybe there is a cost associated with paying for the cleanup or you can pay for insurance beforehand.

i cannot post screenshots here but you can see on my facebook simsity albom how they work

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I never played the Buggy Demo called a Beta Test but I know quite a bit about disasters from videos, pictures, and reading.

Here is what I think I know:

Confirmed Disasters:

1. Fire

2. Earthquake

3. Tornado

4. Meteor Shower

5. UFO

6. Zombie Outbreak

7. Nuclear Meltdown (no explosions)

Possible Disasters:

1. Giant Mutant Lizard

2. Autosaurus Wrecks (one of the events at the largest stadiums, a disaster in SC4:RH)

3. Crime Spree (Dr. Vu instigates one according to the Preorder info)

4. Epidemic (might be turned into Zombie Outbreak, might not be considered special)

5. Riots (in SimCity 4)

Hopefully helpful,

--Ocram

[Deadeye31 1]

You know what would be totally awesome? If Godzilla or aliens did show up and someone in the region had Maxisman and he and/or the police in the region, came and fought a titanic battle while you and everyone in the region who wanted to, got to watch.

I think that would make it all so worth it. XD

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Turning off auto disasters =/= being able to save, destroy your city then reload to a not destroyed city. They're really pushing the idea of persistent cities, and it's been confirmed that the game doesn't allow you to do that.

One of the wonderful features the DRM has to offer us!

You know what would be totally awesome? If Godzilla or aliens did show up and someone in the region had Maxisman and he and/or the police in the region, came and fought a titanic battle while you and everyone in the region who wanted to, got to watch.

I think that would make it all so worth it. XD

Well, it's good to know realism is still a primary focus of the game.

[Deadeye31 1]

There are Zombie attacks and this is the new Sim City, you check realism at the door. It's suppose to be a fun, casual city builder with some added depth if you really really want it, not a super realistic, if-you-can-build-it-here-you-should-change-careers-to-being-a-real-life-city-designer game. Sit back, enjoy the game and have some fun. Don't play just to train to be a real life mayor or something.

[Hoipus 292]

The older simcity games had these kinds of disasters, and they were sound simulators outside of this.

[Deadeye31 1]

This is not the older games.

[Hoipus 292]

Well that's obvious. I just thought that he was trying to imply that it had less depth just because it had zombie attacks, while I mentioned that the previous games in the series all had wildly unrealistic disasters.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

There are Zombie attacks and this is the new Sim City, you check realism at the door. It's suppose to be a fun, casual city builder with some added depth if you really really want it, not a super realistic, if-you-can-build-it-here-you-should-change-careers-to-being-a-real-life-city-designer game. Sit back, enjoy the game and have some fun. Don't play just to train to be a real life mayor or something.

But there's a fine line between realism and rubbish (it never hurts anyone to have UFO's, cartoonish Advisors, and meteorites attacking your city). But when Godzilla, zombies, and many other Sims-like creature occurrences start happening too often (along with the highly realistic green spaces between cities), then these people have stepped too far over the line.

[Deadeye31 1]

There are Zombie attacks and this is the new Sim City, you check realism at the door. It's suppose to be a fun, casual city builder with some added depth if you really really want it, not a super realistic, if-you-can-build-it-here-you-should-change-careers-to-being-a-real-life-city-designer game. Sit back, enjoy the game and have some fun. Don't play just to train to be a real life mayor or something.

But there's a fine line between realism and rubbish (it never hurts anyone to have UFO's, cartoonish Advisors, and meteorites attacking your city). But when Godzilla, zombies, and many other Sims-like creature occurrences start happening too often (along with the highly realistic green spaces between cities), then these people have stepped too far over the line.

So there's no place in your game for "fun but not very realistic"? Don't look at it like black or white, it's not that bad of a game. I'm sure there will be plenty of time to build the city of your dreams. Just make sure you got enough police and/or firefighters for those hairy times. Heck, you could even have a couple extra stations that you leave turned off till you need them in an emergency.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

So there's no place in your game for "fun but not very realistic"? Don't look at it like black or white, it's not that bad of a game. I'm sure there will be plenty of time to build the city of your dreams. Just make sure you got enough police and/or firefighters for those hairy times. Heck, you could even have a couple extra stations that you leave turned off till you need them in an emergency.

Meh... I guess you're right. If the Sims 1 & 2 along with SimCoaster and Theme Park World were as quirky and dorky as they were and still managed to be highly enjoyable games, I'm sure this wouldn't be so bad...

After all, when you have intros to games that look like this XD

I guess a little off-realism won't hurt anyone. As long as they don't make it look like Spore, then I'm happy.